


the waiting's been so long (so long)

by skitzofreak



Series: love, honor, respect [2]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Cassian is a mess, Explicit Consent, F/M, Jyn's only a little better, Porn with Feelings, Resolved Sexual Tension, Smut, dirty talk is not just name calling, i can't just leave well enough alone, semi-resolved romantic tension, tragic backstories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-10
Updated: 2017-08-10
Packaged: 2018-12-13 12:37:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11760054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skitzofreak/pseuds/skitzofreak
Summary: “Jyn,” he leans his head down and presses his mouth to her ear. “Tell me what you want. Show me how to,” he opens his mouth against the skin just behind her ear, tastes her there gently, whispers, “show me how to be honest.”Or: Cassian and Jyn have another discussion about consent.





	the waiting's been so long (so long)

**Author's Note:**

> So I set out to try my hand at some good old fashioned smut (hey, remember when we used to call these lemons? and made endless citrus-based jokes about our characters? ah, good times). However, remember when I said that I can't really envision Cassian and Jyn without their trauma? Turns out I really, honestly can't, because before I could write a single sentence of smut, I had to write 5000 words of backstory. Because I'm ridiculous. But then I wrote 5000 words of very explicit sexin', so I guess it evens out? Sure, let's go with that.
> 
> Also, warning, my Spanish is rusty high-school level at best. If you see any errors, please let me know and I will correct, asap. Thanks!

Cassian is exhausted, and it’s partially Jyn Erso’s fault. Again.

Five months he’s known her, worked with her, run into her practically everywhere because half their classes are the same. Even worse (even better), he keeps meeting her off campus, because despite different last names and a complete lack of family resemblance, somehow he managed to pick her brother as a lab partner. (“Adopted,” Bodhi Rook explains the first time Cassian comes over to study and nearly walks face-first into a half-dressed Jyn, who bolts past him with a gym bag slung over her bare shoulder, stopping only to kiss Bodhi on his cheek on her way out. The sight of Jyn Erso in a form-fitting tank top is not a good antidote to Cassian’s sleeping problem.

In fact, it’s sort of the root of it.)

Jyn presses her fine-boned hands against the desk top, stretching the mess of scars on her knuckles into strange shapes. Cassian wants to ask how she got them, wants to press his lips against them, wants to peel that tank top off and see if the rest of her skin is as pale as her shoulders, wants…wants a lot of things, actually. But it’s hard to remember them all here, now, because Jyn is staring at him with her bright green eyes and leaning forward over the desk. “Hey,” she calls in a soft voice, “I want to kiss my way down your stomach. May I? May I, Cassian?”

He nods, and she gifts him that sharp-edged grin that cut right through his reserve the first time he saw it. “I want the taste of you on my tongue,” she purrs, and her tank top must have loosened because he can almost see straight down it.  The heat in his gut slithers downward into his groin, and he desperately wants to reach out and slip his hands under the hem of that shirt.  “Would you like that?” She tilts her head in that challenging way she has, muscles in her arms taut as she pushes herself up a little in her seat. “Would you let me? Cassian, can I touch you?”

He opens his mouth to say yes, _hell_ yes _, please_ , but what comes out is, “I am not a man, I am a gun in my master’s hand.”

Jyn reels back, her eyes fixed in open horror on his hands, and he can feel the filth spreading across his palms long before he looks down and sees it. “But they are all dead,” he pleads with Jyn, stretching his hands out towards her.

“Another selfish bastard,” Jyn retorts, voice shaking with fury and disgust, “who takes what he wants.”

“You don’t understand,” Cassian says bitterly.

“They never do, son,” Director Draven reminds him, as he slits Jyn Erso’s throat.

Cassian snaps awake in his cheap, narrow bed. His blood pounds in his head and his dick, and some unholy combination of arousal, terror, and guilt churns through his guts. _That was more brutal than usual_ , he thinks distantly. He can definitely blame the first half of it on Jyn Erso, though, after that stunt she pulled in Social Theory last week. Bad enough when she was melting some rich fraternity boy into a puddle of very public humiliation, but then she’d turned her teasing on _him_ …and Cassian had spent the rest of the class alternating between telling himself not to look at her, hating himself every time he looked anyway, and running through every programming code Kay had ever forced him to learn over and over until he could stand up without embarrassing himself. By the time the damn class finally ended, Cassian was a sweaty, aching mess of a human stuffed precariously inside the thinnest veneer of calm. Jyn, on the other hand, had sauntered out of the room like an alley cat on the prowl, without so much as a glance at him. Which was a relief, he reminds himself sternly (a disappointment, some selfish part of him whispers back).

Of course, the second half of the nightmare is entirely his own fault, and an excellent example of why he’s trying not to think about Jyn Erso at all.

Cassian stares blankly at the ceiling of the low-rent apartment he shares with the only friend he has, and debates throwing himself into a lake. Surely there must be one around here.

“Cassian,” Kay’s sharp voice is muffled by the door. “I am leaving for my conference. You have exactly twenty-one minutes before your alarm goes off, which is insufficient to achieve REM sleep. You might as well get up and see me off.”

“I might still be sleeping,” Cassian grumbles, still lying flat on his back like he’s laid out for his funeral (a morbid thought, but then, no one has accused Cassian Andor of being a cheerful person, not for the last twenty years).

“Obvious reason aside,” Kay retorts through the door, “I know you were awake because you made that noise you always make when you dream about _Los Separatistos._ And those dreams always wake you up.”

Cassian stares at the ceiling a moment longer, takes a deep breath, swings his legs over the side. “Yeah,” he says evenly, feeling his habitual neutral mask settle back over his features like a familiar coat. “I’ll be right out, Kay.”

 _It’s over_ , he reminds himself, reaching for his clothes and studiously ignoring his slowly-fading erection. _That time of my life has passed. I survived, Kay survived, we had our vengeance, and now we are starting a new life. We are normal college students, who worry about getting good grades and giving presentations at conferences._ Almost savagely, Cassian shoves his feet into his worn out boots and adds repressively, _and we get ill-advised crushes on pretty girls we cannot touch._

Well, _he_ does, anyway. If Kay has ever had a crush on anyone, Cassian will eat his left boot.

“You will need to go grocery shopping as well,” Kay greets him as he comes out of his room. Cassian’s friend and former brother-in-arms is a tall, lanky black man, who keeps his hair shaved close to his scalp and wears long-sleeved dress shirts buttoned up to his throat.  Everything from his meticulous outfit to his inscrutable demeanor is designed to hide the marks of his past life.  Cassian, who can vaguely remember a time when he had family and friends that loved him, can at least pretend to be a well-adjusted member of society. Kay, who was raised from birth by a cartel until Cassian managed to get them both free, does not see the point in pretending anything at all. He’s an odd friend to have, but he’s honest and he’s loyal, so Cassian is glad to have him.

“Groceries,” he acknowledges, taking the list that Kay thrusts at his groggy face.

“Did you take the diazepam?”

Cassian scowls and pours himself a cup of coffee. “I don’t want Valium, Kay. You know I won’t take anything like that.”

“Your sleep cycles have grown detrimentally erratic again,” Kay admonishes, looking him over with a critical eye. “If you will not take diazepam, then I will pick up some melatonin for you on Monday when I return. It is not an opiate-”

Cassian waves a dismissive hand. “Not necessary.”

Offended, Kay draws himself up to his full, impressive height. “A healthy circadian rhythm is _completely_ necessary,” he starts in his most pompous Educating The Fools tone, but Cassian throws his hands up in surrender before he can really get started.

“Alright, alright, I’ll give it a try.”

Mollified, Kay picks up his briefcase and adjusts his tie in the mirror with the precision of a jeweler adjusting a complex watch. “Make sure you get the right brand of cheese,” he calls as he walks out the door.

Part of Cassian wants to crawl back into bed, but the nightmare has left him restless and unfocused. Exhaustion or no, he knows better than to try and sleep like this. So he stuffs some cold leftover quesadilla from last night in his mouth and grabs Kay’s list. The grocery store is just a short walk down the street, and Cassian moves mechanically through the mostly empty store, grabbing what he needs without really looking. The store has some relentlessly cheerful radio station playing over the PA system, and as he slouches towards the dairy aisle it switches from a relentlessly cheerful pop song to a relentlessly cheerful advertising jingle. Absently, he listens to a woman’s voice exclaim that Lothal Shampoo changed her whole life, and as she praises the brand her voice grows increasingly enthusiastic, until it is a parody of an ecstatic orgasm. Cassian grimaces at the forced sexuality, but then unbidden his mind conjures up Jyn’s face, and he remembers the soft, surprised way her lips had parted when he asked if she would moan for him.  

_Maldita sea._

Cassian does the rest of his shopping with the grim demeanor of a man preparing for the oncoming apocalypse, resolutely thinking about nothing except Kay’s many dietary restrictions and what he’ll need to make chilaquiles for lunch. He pays, loads the food into his backpack and into the spare reusable bag Kay insists they use, and heads back to his apartment determined to spend his weekend studying, cooking, and not thinking about Jyn Erso. He’s not going to think about what she said in Social Theory last week, he’s certainly not going to think about her dressed in her gym clothes, and he’s absolutely not going to imagine her voice lashing out at some pushy rich society boy…

…three feet from his apartment building entrance.

Cassian comes to an abrupt stop, because Jyn Erso is standing three feet from his apartment building entrance, wearing her gym clothes and staring down a pushy rich society boy. 

 _I’m hallucinating_ , is his first thought.

 _Her gym must be near here_ , is his second.

 _If that fool doesn’t get his hand off her arm, he’s going to lose it,_ is his third.

“-just saying,” the fool is just saying, as Cassian comes out of his stupor and tunes in to the conversation. “I mean, you scare a lot of the dudes around here, and scary isn’t normally my type, but in your case I would definitely make an exception.” He looks vaguely familiar; Cassian wonders if he’s the same boy from their Social Theory class, the one Jyn nearly got off with the power of suggestion alone (not the only one, Cassian refuses to admit).

Jyn turns her razor-sharp stare from the fool’s face, to his hand on her arm, then back to his face, and Cassian can hear something like astonishment in her flinty tone. “Are you seriously negging me?”

“Wow, calm down, baby, I’m complimenting you. Can’t you take a compliment? I mean, I’m just being honest, lots of people think you’re kind of a bitch, but I’m telling you that’s kind of hot. I like a filthy mouth on my ladies.”

 _Definitely about to lose the hand_ , Cassian thinks, and before he can really stop himself he calls out, “Jyn?”

Her bare shoulders, already tensed for a fight, flinch a little at his voice, and then she steps to the side so she can see him without turning her back on the fool.

“Oh, hey,” the fool greets Cassian coolly over Jyn’s shoulder. He gives a casual jerk of his head, a nod of passing acquaintance from one bro to another, and then turns his focus back to his quarry.

For her part, Jyn meets Cassian’s eyes squarely, a slight snarl curling her lip. Cassian glances down and sees her right hand curling into a fist. _I’m going to punch him_ , her eyes tell Cassian.

He shakes his head slightly, steps up to her side and brushes his arm against hers. “Hey there,” he returns the fool’s greeting politely. “Nice to see you outside of class. Turner, wasn’t it?”

“Uh, yeah, that’s right.” The fool seems thrown at the direct approach; clearly he expected Cassian to return the nod and go on his merry way. From his scowl, Cassian can tell he is interrupting the fool’s gameplan for Jyn. “And you’re uh, sorry, dude, forgot your name. Antonio or something, right?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Cassian sees Jyn’s lips thin out, and she shifts her weight to her back foot. Casually, he leans a little closer and rests his hand against the small of her back. The contact surprises her enough to briefly prevent her fist from flying into the fool’s face, with the added bonus of irritating the fool himself. “Not even close,” Cassian tells him pleasantly, and then he looks down at Jyn and says “Sorry I’m late. We were out of red onion, and I decided to pick up a few other things while I was out. I hope you’ll forgive me.”

Slowly, Jyn looks up at him through her lashes. Her eyes are bright and her cheeks flushed, and Cassian doesn’t know her that well (not yet, though he wants to, oh, he wants to), but he does know when she’s spoiling for a good fight. There’s that same fire in her eye that he saw when she raged against an unfair court ruling on the news, when she did a case study on homelessness in the inner city, when some racist idiot insulted her brother’s dark features. It’s beautiful and terrifying and Cassian wants to kiss her until that fire burns into his skin.

 _Leave this one,_ he tries to tell her without speaking. Gently, he nudges her back with his fingertips, guiding her away from the fool. _Leave it be. It’s not worth the trouble._

She scowls a little harder, then with a tiny roll of her eyes, she shrugs and relaxes her fist. “It’s fine. I was just getting hungry, is all.” She shifts her gym bag to over her shoulder and reaches for one of his shopping bags. “Here. Hope you’re making something good.”

“I think you’ll like it,” Cassian answers calmly, like this was the plan all along and not a complete surprise that his brain is scrambling to process. He gives the flabbergasted fool a short nod of farewell as he opens his building door, and Jyn sweeps past the both of them like a queen returning to her palace, unconcerned with the squabbling of servants.

They leave the fool standing on the sidewalk, and Cassian guides Jyn up the stairs to the third floor where he lives. He half expects her to toss his shopping bag back in his arms and march back downstairs, but instead she stands by his door and meets his eyes directly. “I didn’t need a rescue,” she says firmly.

“He did,” Cassian replies mildly.

She glares at him, clearly trying to intimidate him. Cassian plucks his shopping bag from her hand and goes inside, raising an eyebrow at her as he passes through the doorframe. He leaves the door open behind him, an invitation but not a demand.

He’s only a few steps down the hall when Jyn exhales what’s probably a curse word under her breath, and steps in. Cassian tries not to look triumphant as she pulls the door shut and follows him into the kitchen. “Guess he owes you one, doesn’t he?”

“Don’t tell him,” Cassian says gravely, shuffling through his bags and putting the cold things away in the fridge. “I don’t think I’d like his gratitude.”

Jyn leans against the counter and reaches into the bags nearest her, handing him their contents to put away and folding the bags up neatly as she finishes with them. She hums contemptuously, poking at a can of lima beans. “Not sure his gratitude would look much different from his idiocy.” She holds her hands up like she’s praying to the skies for strength. “He was actually trying to _neg_ me, Cassian.”

“I’m sure he thought it was a real compliment.”

“Oh no you don’t,” Jyn pushes herself off the counter and steps into Cassian’s personal space. Her face is too close to his, and Cassian forces his eyes to lock onto hers, refusing to look down at the twist of her lips, or the worse, down the front of her tank top. “Don’t apologize for that prat. I don’t care if society has let him down or he has bad role models or whatever the fuck excuse anyone wants to make for him. If he doesn’t know how to talk to women, it’s only because he’s never bothered to ask a woman what she wants to hear.”

He should step away, Cassian knows this. He should step away and maybe change the subject, maybe ask her what she’d like to eat, maybe ask her where she was going before they met, ask her anything except, “What did you want to hear?”

Jyn takes a deep breath, in and out, and she’s so close that he can feel the air rush from her mouth and against his cheek. For a moment he thinks she’s going to back away herself, since he didn’t.

Then, in a small voice, she says, “Honesty.”

“Honesty,” Cassian repeats, and he almost laughs, because of course that’s what Jyn would want. Of course it is.

“You’re _laughing_ ,” she accuses him, flashing from timid to furious faster than he can follow.

“No, no, wait, Jyn,” he holds up his hands, placating, pleading. “Not laughing at you, I promise. Just…” he struggles for the words, “just happy, I guess. Surprised. Not surprised.”

“Happy,” she repeats flatly, settling back down, no longer poised to stalk away.

“It’s been a long time since anyone asked for honesty from me,” he confesses softly, marveling at how easy it is to tell her that.

Jyn raises an eyebrow, looking part pleased and part bewildered. It’s a fascinating mix, and Cassian takes the opportunity to just look at her for awhile as she works that out in her head. “You know,” he says after a moment, “if it’s honesty you want, then I should tell you that you’re very beautiful.”

 _I should have gone back to bed_ , he chides himself _. I am far too tired to have her this close_.

“Oh,” she says faintly. And then, almost as if she’s speaking to herself, “okay then.”

The hair on the back of Cassian’s neck is suddenly standing on end, a warning singing through his veins. “Jyn?”

“Cassian,” Jyn steps forward a little more, until she’s almost touching him. Cassian fights the urge to fidget under her gaze, fights the urge to step away.  Jyn’s eyes study his face like she’s memorizing him, like she expects there will be a test. “Cassian,” she says again like she’s only just learned his name and is practicing the pronunciation. Slightly blurrily, he wonders if perhaps he did go back to bed and this is just another dream. “I’d really like to have sex with you,” Jyn says at last. “Do you want that?”

Por un momento, Cassian olvida el idioma inglés.

And then everything comes back in a rush; his heart is slamming against his ribs and his blood is pounding in his ears. Vaguely, he’s aware that his jaw has gone slack and his eyes are wide. Jyn’s eyes track across his face, and whatever she sees there seems to please her.  It occurs to him a moment late that Jyn actually looks _too_ satisfied with his reaction. Smug, even.

“You’re playing games with me,” he says brusquely, and doesn’t bother to hide the sharp blade of disappointment in his voice.

The smug looks drops off Jyn’s face instantly. “No!” This time it’s her turn to raise her hands, palms out and genuine regret on her face. “No, Cassian, I wasn’t, really. It’s just that I’ve never really seen you without that, that _bored_ look somewhere on your face, and I’ve really, really wanted to for a long time. But I meant it,” she reaches up and hovers her hand just above his cheek. “I meant it,” she repeats softly, and he can’t help it; he leans his head to the side and lets her palm scrape gently against his skin. “I want that, Cassian.”

“Then I…” he swallows, drops his voice and wonders if this is the part where he wakes up, “yeah.” He licks his lips, watches her eyes widen, deliriously thinks about doing it again. “Yeah.”

“It doesn’t have to be a…a big thing, if you don’t want,” Jyn tells him in a rushed tone, like she’s trying to convince him even though he’s already said yes. Her fingers tighten a little against his cheek. “It could just be sex, and I’ll be honest with you if you be honest with me.”

Cassian nods, and because there’s a hint of panic in her eyes that worries him, he tries to speak lightly, “Sex, honesty, and a shower.”

It’s a weak joke, but the tension goes out of her face, replaced by something less nervy and more eager. “We’ll probably need that, yeah. Sex, honesty, shower. And, um,” she glances over his shoulder, to where the last of the foodstuffs are sitting on the counter. “I was promised food, too,” she says mock gravely.

“Sex, honesty, shower, and food,” Cassian repeats dutifully, still standing there, staring at her like an idiot.

“Do you, um,” Jyn bites her lip, and then gives a helpless little gesture that he takes to mean _look at the pair of us, aren’t we ridiculous?_ “Cassian, do you have a bed?”

Wordlessly, he holds out his hand, and tries not to look like a nervous school boy when she takes it. _There’s so much I want to tell you,_ he thinks, _but I don’t know how. And I don’t think you’d understand it anyway. (You are not a man_ , his master says, _you are a gun in my hand, boy_. _) But maybe_ , Cassian tells himself as he feels Jyn press close against his elbow, hand tight in his, _maybe I can at least have this._

His room is only a few meters from the kitchen, and he steps aside and lets her enter before him, brain still whiplashing between how strange this whole thing is and how _right_ it nonetheless feels. His room is small, so small that if he stands in the middle with his arms outstretched, he can touch both sides. His bed is wedged against the wall with a small window overlooking a parking lot, and he’s thrown an old green blanket over it since the blinds don’t work well. Other than the bed, there’s a nightstand piled with books, an old trunk at the foot of the bed, and nothing else.

“It isn’t much,” Cassian starts, then grimaces at how defensive he sounds. He hunts for something else to say to smooth down his hackles, then notices that Jyn is staring at him with a peculiar look on her face. She appears to be debating something – probably thinking this whole thing is insane and not anything like what she wants, Cassian thinks darkly. He tries to kick that ugly thought out of his head, but the longer she stands there silently, the harder it is to let go of the idea that she’s judging him.

“You know we were homeless, right?”

Cassian doesn’t jump, he long ago had that reaction beaten out of him, but he there is a distinct stillness to his surprise. “What?”

“I thought Bodhi might have told you,” Jyn says slowly, like she’s listening to herself say it. “We were homeless for a couple of years, the two of us. After our parents died, we got taken in by our godfather, but he got…sick,” she hesitates over the word, hunching her shoulders and wrapping her arms around herself. She looks small all of the sudden, and Cassian leans forward, wanting to pull her in towards him and hold her. He doesn’t, but it’s a near thing. “They put him in a…a special hospital, but they were going to separate me and Bodhi, send us to different homes. He was almost seventeen, and I was sixteen, we couldn’t get our father’s trust fund until we were of age. We didn’t want to get separated.” She drops her arms suddenly and looks up at him, eyes flashing as if to challenge him. “So we ran, and slept in parks and shelters and under bridges, until I was of age and could get my inheritance. That’s why Bodhi works two jobs and only goes to university part time, because he thinks he hasn’t, you know, _contributed_ enough. He’s wrong, but that’s what he thinks,” Jyn rolls her eyes in fond exasperation, then her face takes on that stubborn, defiant expression that pulls at something in Cassian’s chest, every time he sees it.

“So there,” she all but throws the words into his face, watching him closely for a reaction. “Now you know.”

Cassian lets her look, knows she’s scouring his expression for pity or uneasiness, but he also knows there is none for her to find. Something tight in his gut starts to unravel as he realizes that maybe he’s been wrong about her. Maybe she _would_ understand.

“I used to be in a cartel,” he tells her softly. “Kay, too. We were taken as children, raised as foot soldiers. We did some bad stuff, until we got smart enough to contact the Federales.” He shrugs, trying to keep his voice as light as possible, watching Jyn’s face as intently as she watched his a moment ago. “They asked us to stay on the inside for a few years more, as informants, until they had enough to take down the…” he stumbles over the word, not sure what the equivalent would be in English. “ _Los grandiosos,_ the, uh, the bosses,” he shrugs at last. “When that was done, the Federales gave us some money, some papers and set us up here. Like this.” He makes a broad gesture, encompassing the cheap but clean apartment, the pile of books stacked on the rickety nightstand, his own shabby but serviceable clothes.

“A new start,” Jyn murmurs, and Cassian feels his shoulders relax a little. There is no pity in her voice, or horror, or worse, fascination. She just… _understands_.

Cassian folds his arms and leans back against the nearest wall, closing his eyes to give himself a moment to collect his composure. He hasn’t spoken about any of this to anyone, ever. Kay is the only person alive who knows the whole story, and there’s never been a need to discuss any of it with him. He’s never felt even the slightest desire to discuss his past, except somehow Jyn walks into his life with her fierce eyes and fiercer opinions, and he drags her home and tells her his life story like it’s nothing, like he wants her to know, like it’s safe.

“Cassian,” she says softly, from much closer than he expects, and his eyes snap open to find Jyn is only a few inches away, her hand hovering just a breath away from his chest. “I would really like to kiss you,” she tells him in a matter of fact tone that makes his stomach tie itself into knots. “Can I?”

“Yeah,” he answers through a suddenly dry mouth. “Yeah,” he says again as she steps forward and pushes up to her tiptoes, balancing herself against his chest with one hand. “Jyn –“

Her mouth is a little rougher than he expects, slightly chapped, but she is warm and gentle against him, and after a brief press, she pulls back, meets his eyes, and deliberately runs her tongue over her lips. Cassian’s breath catches, and he starts to push himself upright, but Jyn presses her other hand against his chest and leans her full weight on him, keeping him anchored against the wall.  “Wait,” she whispers, her breath ghosting across his cheek. “You’re easier to reach this way. Just, here -” She pokes at his arms until he uncrosses them, and then she wedges herself between his legs like she belongs there, and Cassian’s heart starts to race in earnest. Jyn slips her arms around his back and brushes her lips very lightly against his throat, whispering, “This okay?”

Cassian nods, words caught in his throat, arms winding tentatively around her waist. “Cassian,” Jyn says a little admonishingly, “Honesty, remember? Tell me what you want.”

Cassian takes a shuddering breath, opens his mouth, closes it again. “I…can’t,” he forces out at last.

“Cassian –“

He shakes his head, but when she starts to pull back his arms tighten reflexively. “No, wait, Jyn, I…” he hunts for the words, off balance and unnerved. “They trained me not to,” he tells her in a unsteady whisper.

“The feds?”

“And _los separatistos_ before that. You don’t talk, not if you want to live. You don’t, don’t-“ Frustrated, Cassian thumps his head back against the wall. “ _Never tell anyone a thing they can use against you_ ,” he recites in his mother tongue, closing his eyes against the memory. “ _Never show them anything but what you need them to see. You are not a man, you are a gun in your master’s hand.”_

“ _Un arma_ ,” Jyn repeats slowly against his collarbone, and Cassian opens his eyes and looks down at the top of her head. She hasn’t tried to pull away again; if anything, she’s pressing in tighter against him. “That means ‘weapon,’ right?”

“You are not a man, but a weapon,” he translates for her, feeling giddy and foolish and maybe even a little frightened.  If ever there was someone who could hurt him, if ever there was a weapon he could hand her…

“Did _los sepa_ … _separatistos_ ,” she trips over the word, but it doesn’t slow her down, “did they tell you that, Cassian?”

He should change the subject, how the hell did they get on this anyway? How tired is he, that he’s just babbling like this?

Honesty, she wanted honesty. _Apparently,_ some small voice in Cassian’s mind whispers, _I did too._ “It’s part of the oath I learned as a child,” he confesses, and his voice sounds far away and strange to his ears. “Drav- _los Federales_ taught me something similar, too, once I turned and started helping them. _Tu cuerpo es un arma._ You must do violence to end violence.”

“Hmm. Sounds like bullshit,” she says slowly, thoughtfully.

Cassian smirks a little at that, picturing the _look_ on his handler’s face, if Draven could hear Jyn now. “Maybe.”

“Definitely. And Cassian? You seem very much like a man to me.” That’s all the warning he gets before she rolls her hips against his. Cassian, completely unprepared, gasps out loud. Mercifully, she stops at one, giving him a moment to recover. He can feel her smiling against the curve of his neck, however, and knows it’s a brief respite at best.

Cassian clears his throat and mimics her thoughtful tone. “Is that so?” He’s not fooling her, though; how could he, when her lips are pressed against his pulse point, when she can feel how wildly his heart is pounding?

“Cassian,” Jyn pulls her head back to look him in the face. “Our bargain still stands, okay?”

“Honesty for honesty,” he agrees. Experimentally, he runs a hand from the base of her neck to the small of her back, trailing fingers all along the bumps of her spine.  She arches slightly under his touch, which serves to roll her hips against him again, and a good chunk of Cassian’s anxiety burns away in a rush of heat. “Jyn,” he leans his head down and presses his mouth to her ear. “Tell me what you want. Show me how to,” he opens his mouth against the skin just behind her ear, tastes her there gently, whispers, “show me how to be honest.”

 “I want,” Jyn pauses, licks her bottom lip (he can’t really see her face, but he can feel every miniscule movement of her mouth against his throat, and it’s driving him more than a little mad), and then she says, “I want you to take my shirt off.”

Cassian slips his hands under the hem of her tank top, and takes a moment to press his palms flat against the skin of her back before sliding up her spine, pushing the material of her shirt up as he goes. “Like this?”

She nods, loosens her grip on his torso long enough to raise her arms so he can pull her shirt over her head, then grips his belt tightly as if for balance as he flips her shirt right-side out again and drapes it neatly over the trunk by his bed. “Now?”

“I want you to touch me,” she tells him softly. “Your hands on my back, my sides,” she arches a little against him again, as if emphasizing the point, and Cassian slides his hands against her spine again, rubbing in long, slow strokes up and down her back, then over her shoulders, down her sides again. He skirts around the edges of her sports bra, brushing his fingers against the thick hem but no further, and then slips his hands around her hips to the small of her back again. There’s a thick scar about the length of his little finger, just above the left dimple on her lower back; he knows a knife scar when he sees one, and Cassian’s hand lingers over it for a moment, tracing the shape and then caressing it with his palm.

“Will you tell me about this?” he dares, and after a moment, she nods.

“Later, okay?”

“Okay.” Cassian runs his hands down her back again, this time pressing a little harder, pulling her against him just a little more tightly.  He kisses the soft spot below her ear again, breathes in as she exhales in response, and murmurs against her skin, “Tell me what you want now, Jyn.”

“I want you to take off my bra and my, my…” she swallows, her breath stuttering as his hands skim across her stomach. “I want you to strip me naked, Cassian,” she says in a quiet voice that goes straight to the root of his spine. “I want to feel your hands on me, on my bare skin.”

Words desert him entirely; Cassian can only nod as he runs his hands up to the series of small metal clasps on the back of Jyn’s sports bra. They’re small and fiddly, and Cassian feels mildly embarrassed as he struggles to unhook them all. He gets two of them off, but the third seems stuck, and he grunts in frustration and shame as she twists her arms around to get it herself. “Sorry,” he starts to say, but she leans up and kisses the corner of his mouth before she unhooks the last latch. He almost lets it drop there, but she asked for honesty, so he forces himself to admit, “I don’t…do this much.” 

“Sex, or unhooking a bra?” She smiles at him a little, equal parts shy and encouraging.

“Either,” he chuckles, the embarrassed flush fading into a much more pleasant heat as she shrugs off the bra and leans forward again, her newly bared breasts rubbing lightly against his shirt. “I don’t, ah, trust much.”

“Yeah, I got that,” she says, a little amused.

“The few before,” he finds the lines that her bra carved into her skin and runs his fingers along them, tracing the patterns, massaging them smooth, “they were quick, always at least partially dressed. I’ve never been…it’s too vulnerable,” he tells her. “To be completely naked, it’s too much. Jyn, if you don’t really want that, you don’t have to, not for me. I understand.”

“You do, don’t you?” Jyn leans her head back and looks him dead in the eye again. “I don’t trust much either,” she confesses, and Cassian nods because that, at least, he figured out early on. “But I trust you,” she ducks her head and presses her face against his chest, arms tightening around him and she shudders briefly, just once. Her voice sounds raw and uncertain, like she can’t quite believe she just said that. “I trust you, Cassian,” she whispers into his shirt, and the last of Cassian’s nerves vanish into dust.

“Come here, Jyn.” He pushes her hips a little away from him, ignoring the way his own body flinches at the sudden chill where her warmth had been. She moves where he puts her, hands clenched tight into his shoulders as he hooks his fingers into her shorts and underwear underneath. He leans forward and kisses her softly, just hard enough to rock her back a little, but doesn’t take her invitation to open his mouth and kiss harder. Instead, he pulls back and waits until she opens her lovely, clever green eyes and looks at him. “You can stop me with a word, okay? Any time, Jyn, I’ll stop.”

She nods, glances down at his fingers tucked into her waistband, and then back up at him. Her eyes are dark, pupils already blown wide, a pink flush creeping up her chest and neck and just starting to color her cheeks. “I know.”

Cassian drops to his knees and as gently as he can, pulls her trousers down her legs. He tugs her running shoes and socks off one at a time, listening to her breathing hitch as his bent head brushes against her thigh once, watching her shift her weight restlessly as he wraps his hands around one ankle and pulls her foot free of clothes, sets it back down and pulls the other free.

She’s completely naked in front of him, but Cassian takes a moment to fold her trousers and underwear into a neat stack and sets them on the trunk with her shirt and bra. When he reaches for her shoes in order to line them up against the base of the trunk, Jyn growls out a frustrated little, “ _Cassian_ ,” and he smiles up at her through his eyelashes.

“Hm?”

“Cassian,” she says again, running her scarred hands roughly through his hair, blunt nails scraping over his scalp (it feels… _joder_ , it feels amazing, she’s making it so hard to _focus)._

“Tell me what you want,” he rasps, running his fingers lightly down the sides of her legs, breathing in the scent of her, feeling her skin against his fingertips, trying desperately not to think about how hard he is, how tightly his jeans are pressing against his own arousal.

“Come up here and let me kiss you proper,” Jyn tugs at his hair, not hard enough to hurt but just enough to get his full attention. He surges to his feet, this time not hesitating to wrap his arms around her and pull her tight against him, like a puzzle piece he never realized he was missing. She’s a solid seventeen or eighteen centimeters shorter than him, forcing him to bend farther down to kiss her than is strictly comfortable. But she throws her head back to meet him, and that way it hardly strains his neck at all. Jyn’s mouth is warm and wet and eager against his, she licks into his mouth and bites at his lip, and Cassian can taste the faint salt of sweat and some kind of fruit on her breath, he makes a note to ask her what it is. Later. Right now, she tastes like heaven, like every good kiss he’s ever dreamed of having. 

He slips his right hand behind her head to support her, just in case this is straining her own neck, and lets his other hand roam across her back, down around the curve of her ass, the round flare of her hip and thigh, up her soft belly to the sensitive underside of her breast.

“Here?” he asks against her mouth, and brushes his thumb over the pinkish brown of her nipple.

She gasps as it draws tight beneath his fingers, and nods, but he’s not content with that. “Jyn,” he pulls away a little, feeling a little thrill when she lifts her mouth as if to chase him. “Jyn, tell me. Please.”

“Yes, there,” she grates out, but when he doesn’t kiss her again she shoots him an almost murderous look ( _madre de Dios_ , she’s so fucking _beautiful)_ and says in a clear, precise voice, “Cassian, I want you to put your hands on my tits and kiss me until I can’t stand. _Please_.”

He can’t help it; he laughs. Jyn stares at him like he’s gone mad, and maybe he has, but he’s waited five months (all his life) to touch her and she’s making it sound like he’s doing her some sort of favor.  Before she can demand to know what’s so funny, he seals her mouth with his own and kisses her like it’s his last chance, bending her a little farther backwards, feeling her ribcage shudder beneath him as he slides his left hand up over her breast and catches her nipple gently between two fingers. He doesn’t clamp down or twist, just strokes his fingers around the small, tight peak, tracing her with his fingertips as featherlight on her skin as his mouth is heavy against her lips.

“Cassian,” she moans – oh fuck, she’s actually _moaning his name_ – and rolls her hips against him again, hard.

“Tell me,” he gasps, kissing a harsh line down her neck and switching his hands, holding her upright with his left hand and tracing the fingers of his right around the curve of her right breast, brushing his fingers gently against her nipple and drawing aimless designs across her chest as she shivers.

“I want your hands on me,” she starts, then stops because he’s already shaking his head, kissing the soft line of her throat and pressing his fingers a little harder against her skin for emphasis.

“Already there,” he murmurs, and she spits a curse so foul he’s not even sure he understands all of it. Is that even a word in English? He wants to ask her about it, but before he can she lets go of his shirt, laces her fingers around the back of his neck, and forces him to look at her.

“I want you to flip me around and press your weight up behind me,” she commands in a low, fierce voice, and his mouth goes dry. “I want you to push me against this wall,” a nod over his shoulder, “and I want you to make me come with your hand, Cassian.”

 _She’s going to give me a heart attack_ , he thinks. In that moment, it sounds like a good death.

But she’s not done with him yet. “I want to feel you against my back as I come, Cassian,” Jyn says. “I want to feel how much you want me. And I want you to feel how badly I want you.”

 _The best death_ , he amends, sweating and stunned. In the back of his mind, an old, smoke-roughened voice mutters _no eres un hombre, tu cuerpo es un arma,_ but in his arms Jyn whispers _I like your hands on me, Cassian_ and it’s frighteningly easy to shove the old memories away.

He picks Jyn up (she’s remarkably heavy for someone so much shorter than him, but then, she’s all muscle and sinew and scars, a fighter in more ways than he even recognized before now) and spins around, crowding her up against the wall and stealing one last searing kiss from her mouth. Then he grabs her shoulders and twists her to face away from him. She curves her back easily into his chest, as natural as if she’s been there a dozen times before, as if she knows exactly where to fit herself against him. Her backside presses firmly against his groin and Cassian can’t quite stop the curse that rips out of his mouth.

Jyn makes a sound that’s half a laugh and half a plea, and rocks her hips back again. “No,” Cassian flings an arm around her waist to hold her still and grabs one of her wandering hands. He twines her fingers between his and flattens her palm against the wall, his palm pressed on top of hers, grounding them both. Her other hand reaches up and grips his wrist, though he can’t tell whether she means to hold his arm steady or peel it off her. “Not yet,” he growls into her ear, voice low and rough, fighting for focus, fighting to hold her _still_. “You first. You said – _carajo,_ Jyn, you wanted my hands.”

“I want to make you feel good, too,” she answers, and he can feel her shivering, just a little - is she cold? Or is she actually shivering for another reason - is he making her feel so good that reserved, standoffish, perpetually-unimpressed Jyn is shaking with pleasure under his hands? The thought that she might already be this close just from his touch is almost too much for him to believe. _I am a weapon_ , he wants to tell her, _my hands are not clean_ ; he wants to say it but he doesn’t, because she already knows, and she doesn’t seem to care.

“I do,” he promises. “I already – Jyn, you make me feel…shit, I don’t have the words, Jyn. I don’t know how to…just let me do what you asked, okay? Let me feel you against me. Will you do that?”

Jyn nods, and slowly loosens her grip on his wrist. He waits another moment for his own breathing to even out (it doesn’t, not even close, but at least he tried). Moving slowly, so as not to shake her hand off his wrist, he inches his hand down, dragging his fingers down the seam of her hip and raking lightly through the dark curls between her legs. He pauses when his fingers reach her (shit, what is the English word for a woman’s _coño_?) where she is already soft and wet, and he pulls his hand away until he’s hovering just a millimeter above her skin.

She goes tense and still against him, holding her breath. “Jyn,” Cassian presses his mouth against the base of her neck and lets his teeth scrape her skin as he speaks. “Tell me what you want.”

“I want you to stroke my cunt,” (ah, that was it, now he remembers). “Please,” Jyn adds, her voice low and steady, aching, and Cassian forgets his difficulties with language and presses his fingers against the warm heat of her, starting at the little round nub of her clit and drawing a straight line down between her lips. She gasps when he does it again with a little more confidence, which he’s ready for, but then she says, “and I want to tell you what I’m going to do to you when it’s my turn,” which he is _not_ ready for, _at all._

He freezes, sure he’s misheard. “What?”

“Don’t stop,” she groans, tilting her body towards his hand, and Cassian slides his fingers back up and makes a gentle circle around her clit before sliding back down. “I said,” Jyn gasps, jerking a little against him. “I want to tell you what I want for _you_.” She turns her head and looks at him over her shoulder, eyes bright and face flushed completely pink.  And not that he’s trying particularly hard right now, but Jyn is already a master at reading his face, because she answers the question he can’t quite bring himself to voice out loud. “Of course I want to touch you, too, Cassian,” she says, as if it’s the most natural impulse in the world.

Cassian strokes her again, once, twice more, and then leans his forehead against her shoulder and breathes, “Okay.”

Jyn matches her voice in rhythm with his hand on her body. She breathes in as he strokes downward, but as he glides back up and draws a tight little circle around her clit, she speaks. “I want to push you down on that bed,” she says, “and when I pull that shirt off you, I’m not going to bloody _fold it,_ ” she rolls her hips back against him for emphasis, and Cassian’s hand stutters. He bites the back of her shoulder in mild warning and then starts again, a little harder, a little faster.

“I want to tear your clothes off and straddle you,” she goes on, “and then I want to push myself down until just the tip of your cock is inside me – oh, fuck, Cassian, harder – just the head of you, and I’ll hold you just there until you ask for more, until you’re ready to tell me what you want – ah, I want your fingers, Cassian, inside, please?”

He slips one finger inside, then two, and the angle’s a little awkward for a moment, but then she arches her back and rises up slightly on her toes, and Cassian has to concentrate very hard on keeping his rhythm because otherwise he’s going to lose control and embarrass himself again, and he’s not nearly ready to be done with her, not yet. “You want me to beg, Jyn?” He means it to sound irreverent, like he’s not taking it too seriously, but his voice is too strained and comes out harsh, uncertain. He curls his fingers inside her as a sort of apology, and closes his eyes as she bucks hard against his hand.

She shakes her head, “No, not beg. I don’t need you to beg, I just need you to tell me the truth. When you’re ready, Cassian, that’s when I’ll take you in, hard and fast, one quick push,” she bucks against him again, this time presumably in demonstration, and Cassian feels the last strands of his control starting to fray. Twenty years of blood-soaked violence and psychological molding, he thinks with a bitter sort of mockery, and she undoes it all in a handful of months with a few loud opinions, a few filthy words, and the promise of her trust. If his old boss was still alive and not rotting in hell, he’d froth at his thrice damned mouth.

He doesn’t want to think about that.

“Tell me what you want,” Cassian whispers against Jyn’s shoulder, because he needs her to chase the ghosts away, needs her to ask for his hands and his lips and his body like they are all something worth having.

“I want – there, yes, there! – I want – Cassian –“ he can feel her shaking and clenching around him, coming apart in his hands, and at the last moment, she flings back her head, turns her face into his neck and moans, “Cassian, I want _you_.”

If she says anything else, he can’t hear it through the roaring in his ears, the hammer blows of his heart in his chest. She’s shaking so hard now that Cassian pulls his hand from the wall (still wrapped around hers) and holds her tight against him with both arms, stumbling back until his knees hit the edge of his bed and he falls back. Jyn’s weight landing on his lap is almost – almost – the last straw, but Cassian remembers the wistful way she said _I want to make you feel good too_ and forces himself to run through one of Kay’s algorithms, starting over twice when she makes some small sound and he forgets the formula. He can wait for her. He can wait. He’s been waiting a long time, a little longer won’t kill him. Besides, there’s a hedonistic sort of pleasure in holding Jyn as she comes down from her own orgasm, in tucking her under his chin and folding as much of his body around her as he can as her limbs slowly stops twitching and her breathing smooths out.

Of course, there’s a sort of torture in it, too, as every little twitch shifts her weight in his lap. After a few minutes, she notices, and he can feel her testing the waters, shifting more deliberately until at last he leans his forehead against her hair and says, “Jyn, will you…” He trails off, because all his self-imposed rules may seem stupid now but they are still not _gone_. _Too vulnerable,_ he thinks, _too much._

Jyn lifts her head and meets his eyes, and he sees that spark of understanding again. “Come here,” she says, her voice is hoarse but more tender than he thinks he’s ever heard it.

“I won’t last,” he admits a little stiffly, but she says “good” like she means it and he lets go the last of any possible shame.

“I know I said something different,” Jyn wiggles upright in his lap, making him groan, “but I want to try – here, come here.” She slides off his lap and onto the bed behind him, tugging at his shirt until he turns and kneels between her legs. She pulls the hem of his shirt up, raising a questioning eyebrow at him until he nods and helps her strip it from him. His movements are jerky, brittle around the edges, because even now there’s a part of him that thinks he’s lost his damn mind.

She picks up on it, his sudden hesitation, and stop with her hands hovering over the button of his jeans. “Do you need a minute?”

He means to say “yes, please, just to pull myself together,” but what he actually says is “I wish I knew more about you.”

Jyn’s eyes go wide, then narrow, and he has a sudden vision of her jumping to her feet and sauntering out of the room like an alley cat, like she had at the end of that damn Social Theory class when she left him almost as much of a mess. He realizes that he’s gripping her thigh under one hand too tight, trying to hold her there, and forces his fingers to relax. The movement seems to jolt her out of whatever she’s thinking, and she reaches up and brushes her hand down his cheek, tracing some random pattern in his stubble. “Okay,” she says, like she’s forcing herself to set something aside. “Okay. If you want. Later.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

He stares at her, manages to pull up a shaky half-smile. “Good.”

She returns the smile, the promise, and then light as a bird settles her hands back at his zipper. “I won’t strip you, if that’s too much,” she tells him, and he thinks he might love her a little, for understanding. “But I’d like to at least get you off. Would you let me?”

Cassian nods, and Jyn pulls the zipper down and pushes his jeans and underwear just as far as she needs to pull his cock free. He kneels above her on the bed and concentrates on breathing. Jyn leans up suddenly and presses her lips hard against his, a closed-mouth kiss that still almost does the job right then and there, because he’s so damn sensitive at this point it’s truly ridiculous. “I’m going to use my hands,” Jyn tells him, “unless you want something else?”

 _I want your hands,_ he almost answers out loud, but the words catch in his throat, drowned by gunfire and the distant laughter of dead men _, I want everything you’ll give me, the sex and the shower and the food and the opinions, everything you are willing to give, everything I can hold._

He can only nod again, but for now that’s enough. Jyn reaches down and swipes her hand up her cunt, coating her fingers with her own slick, and Cassian doesn’t even try to stop the groan as he watches her. She wraps her warm, slippery hand around him and slips her other hand up to his chest, to trace patterns around his nipple in a mirror of what he’d done to her. If he had any brain cells to spare, he would be surprised at how good that feels, but his attention is entirely focused lower down. She sets an unforgiving rhythm, not enough to hurt but definitely too hard and fast for him to resist long. He groans again, feeling the muscles in his stomach tensing, his thighs shaking. Jyn slips her free hand from his chest to the back of his neck and pulls his head down so she can seal her mouth against his pulse point and suck a harsh bruise into his skin.

“Come on me, Cassian,” Jyn murmurs softly over the mark she’s left on his throat, “you can come on me, it’s okay, I want you to.” Her fingers are warm and rough and perfect around him, and she’s barely finished speaking when his vision whites out around the edges and every muscle in his body snaps taut. Instinctively, Cassian throws his arm up and covers his mouth, biting down on the shout that she’s wringing from him as he spills over in her hand and across her belly.

He’s shaking, trembling like he’s just run a marathon, on his hands and knees above her while she looks up at him with those sharp green eyes that miss nothing. At least, he’s gratified to notice, her legs are shaking a little too, even now, and her face is flushed a deep pink despite her steady breathing. Absently, she tucks him back into his jeans and wipes her sticky hand across her ribcage, unconcerned with the cooling mess on her skin. Cassian swallows and tries to sit back, which pulls her with him, since she’s holding on to the back of his neck with her clean hand and doesn’t seem inclined to let go. Cassian is quick to brace her with his own hands, letting her fall forward and rest her forehead against his collarbone as his lungs remember how to breathe.

“I think I’d like that shower now,” she mumbles a little drowsily, and Cassian huffs a slightly sheepish laugh.

“Right. You can’t be comfortable like that.”

“Actually am, thanks,” Jyn says firmly, and the hand on the back of his neck tightens for a moment as if in reprimand. “I told you I wanted it, didn’t I? And we agreed to be honest.”

“Still, you’re probably getting cold-“

“Cassian,” Jyn lifts her face to glare at him until he stops talking, and then nestles her head against his chest again. “This is nice, too, you know,” she tells him softly. “I haven’t been held like this in long time.”

He almost doesn’t say it, but honesty is a drug and Cassian’s already an addict, so he tightens his fingers against her ribs and whispers, “I never have.”

They sit in silence for a long moment.

"I’d like to -” He stops, clears his throat, starts again. “I’d like to share that shower with you, if you wouldn’t mind.”

He feels her soft laugh against the hollow of his throat. “Good. And then maybe some food?”

“Definitely food,” he concurs, and he’s starting to feel lightheaded, giddy even, because he barely knows anything about her, certainly has no idea how to do any of this, but he wants to know everything, wants to give her everything he can, wants this – whatever the hell it is – to _work_. “How do you feel about chilequilas?”

“I have no idea, but I’d like to stay and find out.”

Cassian closes his eyes, presses his lips to her temple, and despite himself whispers, “Will you?” He wonders if she knows that he’s not talking about the food.

“Yeah.” Jyn digs her fingers into the base of his neck and turns her head until her lips are brushing his skin. “Cassian, I will,” and he knows that she does.

**Author's Note:**

> If Cassian's backstory seemed vague, that was intentional. You can pretty much headcanon whatever you like and it will fit with some basic guidelines: Cassian was raised by a cartel until he and Kay turned on it, informed to the feds, destroyed the gang, and fled the country to live in their "happily ever after." Which, fortunately for Cassian, now involves Jyn. 
> 
> There, NOW I've written the only college/modern AU I will ever write.


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